Week Summary - BA1b Week 2

UV Mapping

This week was learning the basics of UV mapping and how to project maps onto meshes. We started with some basic cubes and other shapes to get an idea of how the process works. (I used some random images from google here.) I found this process easy enough to get the hang of although I don't fully understand it yet and could do with more practise. On these basic shapes mapping seems easy enough, but I can see how as the models get more complicated mapping them will be much more difficult.

After the session, I tried modelling and texturing a small cactus for practise, using some basic gradient and brick textures. There were some slight issues with projection that I couldn't figure out the cause of, this is something I'm hoping to fix once I know a little more about the process and what could be happening.

Life Drawing

Life drawing had a focus on portraiture and faces this week, starting with short expression studies of a few minutes and ending with a longer portrait piece. I found it difficult to get a convincing likeness of the model in the initial short periods, but they're good for quick improvement and as a warmup. The longer piece was one I was quite proud of, until I looked at it again after a few hours, one of the reasons I usually take a break between sketching and further rendering. Neither one of the eyes is badly positioned, I don't think, but they don't sit correctly together, the ear is too far back and the mouth a little small (although this was partially down to the model), and it could use a little more rendering, but other than that I think it turned out an effective (if unfinished) piece.

Studies

I've decided to start doing photo studies as practise and in order to get a better understanding of lighting and colour. I started with a facial study, but I want to try some landscape, material and object studies in future as I haven't really focused on those areas prior to now.

(Image source)

This particular piece could do with further rendering and is slightly off in terms of anatomy, but as a colour and lighting study I think it did its job for the most part. It helped me see a lot of what I was doing wrong with regards to colour, and doing a study with a white light source was an interesting one.

Week Summary - BA1b Week 1

Starting BA1b and looking forward to the new material. Hearing more of the theory behind 3D work (what 3D is based on, different maps which are used for texturing, etc.) is very interesting and very helpful in understanding how these programmes function.

Maya

This is the first lamp, made in the initial Maya session from a reference image. Although I had done some 3D work before in Blender, Maya was completely new to me. Initially I found the interface very confusing in comparison, but found I picked it up quite quickly once I figured out which tools were similar. Learning to use the extrude tool properly has been a major help, also. I'm glad, though, for a little more formal teaching in modelling, as my previous experience was mainly trial-and-error self teaching. I'm especially looking forward to starting UV mapping, etc. because before this I had only coloured models in solid tones.

For the second lamp I tried something a little more complex shape-wise, including a wire with a switch as well. I find building forms in 3D a nice challenge, trying to figure out the best and most efficient way to build more complex shapes. I also tried out some different lighting options just to see what I could do with them. I found one option that looked quite nice for the metallic sections, but I want to try these out a bit more to get some added realism in the model.

Digital painting

This week's digital painting workshop focused on texturing and creating custom brushes. I feel that having a resource like textures.com is going to be really helpful in the future, and I'm looking forward to putting these new techniques to use in my work. Although I usually use premade textured brushes, being able to customise them will enable me to hone them further for more specialised uses.

These are some experiments using custom texture brushes and overlaid textures - I tried out rust and fish scale textures here. The results look a lot better than anything that I can currently hand-paint, and are much more quickly produced. Eventually I want to get to a level where I could paint these myself but in terms of efficiency these methods are going to be incredibly useful in creating quick, effective concept pieces.

Other

I've also taken out two books from the library to look more at games theory - Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman's "The Rules of Play" and Scott Rogers' "Level Up!" looked very interesting; I want to look more into the thought that goes into games design and how I can use it, so I can start on my own personal projects, for now.